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BBC pay-off a 'reward for failure'

MPs have delivered a scathing assessment of the way the BBC paid off former Director General George Entwistle at the expense of the licence fee payer. The Public Accounts Committee says it was a "reward for failure".

The National Audit Office (NAO) will examine the situation after MPs said pay-offs for senior BBC figures had been "excessively generous".

The investigation was sparked after George Entwistle, the former director general, stood down over the Jimmy Savile scandal with a £450,000 pay-off.

Today an NAO spokesman said the decision to look at BBC severance packages was taken in the light of Mr Entwistle's departure.

A spokesman for the BBC Trust said: "The chairman previously suggested that it would be useful for the NAO to look not just at the package George Entwistle received, but at severance pay in the BBC more widely.

"We have received their schedule of work for 2013 and we are pleased to see that they will take this approach in a planned review for next year."